Woman who married 14 men to fund Las Vegas gambling habit pleads guilty

A woman in her 30s charged with marrying 14 men and defrauding them to fund her gambling in Las Vegas has pleaded guilty.

Ziaying Chen, 33, acknowledged one count of bigamy and one count of fraud involving more than $100,000, according to the Independent on Thursday.

Chen is accused of exploiting Las Vegas's loosely regulated marriage system by quickly marrying men she met online and extracting tens of thousands of dollars from each under various pretexts.

Las Vegas is widely regarded as one of the easiest places in the world to get married, with dozens of chapels in the downtown area where couples can walk in without a reservation and hold a same-day ceremony.

According to police, Chen would propose marriage almost immediately to men she met on social media, then ask them for money, claiming she needed to help a sick family member in China.

One victim said that shortly after the wedding, Chen told him she needed money for a relative's medical treatment and he handed over $23,000 — only for Chen to cut off contact about two weeks later, saying she no longer wanted to continue the marriage.

Another victim said Chen persuaded him to save money together toward buying a home, and after he gave her about $30,000, she stopped responding entirely.

Police said Chen severed all contact with the men once she received their money. Some filed for annulment after she disappeared, but others remain legally married to her to this day.

Chen obtained seven marriage certificates from the Clark County marriage license bureau between March 2019 and May 2024. She was arrested in 2024 on charges of bigamy and theft but was released, after which she was found to have obtained another seven marriage certificates under the alias Vicky Liang. Chen was arrested in Las Vegas in June.

Police said Chen lost more than $300,000 at Las Vegas casinos over the past year, adding that the money taken from victims "appears to have been used for gambling, not for overseas relatives."

During a 2024 police investigation, Chen said she carried out the sham marriages in Las Vegas because "getting married was too easy."

The Clark County prosecutor said the guilty plea agreement would allow victims to submit restitution reports to the court and, ideally, recover the money Chen had taken from them.

bbo@heraldcorp.com